Boztepe goes MMA

Hi it's been a long time since I posted here last time, so I want to start again with a "nice" news: in a stage we did last saturday (I live in Italy), Emin Boztepe said he's going to stop doing WT, and dedicate himself to MMA, and that he wants to enter the fighting sport "business" (I think not directly himself but as a school).

The reason behind this is that in US the WT business is too small and he wants to expand in new "markets".

Personally the news do not affect me as I will still be doing WT here (I forecast a break with EBMAS from my association of instructors); I have been doing MMA in the past in fact and I changed because I wanted to do something different, so I think I will stick with them.

I am just curious as what kind of approach he will be taking in training, maybe more emphasis in physical training (which at the moment is zero in classes, you've got to do it by yourself), and at the end he will intorduce some kind of wrestling (turkish?)

I'm guessing thats an assumption, as to my (limited) knowledge, Boztepe has no knowledge of yagli gures? I could be wrong. However, I would have thought it unlikely as I think training in yagli gures tends to be professional (i.e., specifically geared towards the annual tournament) rather than an amateur interest, with schools dotting Kirkpinar (near Edirne), where the annual tournament is held. Although I don't know that for certain - just going by what my father said when I mentioned I'd be interested in trying a Turkish martial art.

More info (interesting despite rather silly claim that "The Turk's are the world's toughest wrestlers", and I say that as a Turk myself :icon_smil )

Emin can wrestle. So can his student that I trained under, Sifu Ashkan Sarabi. In fact we would do some wrestling as part of the ciriculum. Don't think Emin is a big ***** or pushover just because he does WT. He is strong, in good shape (when I saw him), and very aggressive. He is also a very hard puncher and I feel he could KO most people with his chain punching.

I don't like WT because most of its application doesn't work and I got tired of the endless forms. I happen to think there are better ways to train. However, the gym which Ashkan Sarabi runs is quite good in terms of teaching someone how to fight.